What They Did
Duolingo is a popular language learning app that used gamification to teach languages. It employed thousands of contractors for content creation, translation, and quality assurance of learning materials.
How LLMs Killed Them
Duolingo replaced human contractors with GPT-4 for content creation, sentence generation, translation lists, and error review. The company itself thrived — stock went up — but it became a prominent example of AI replacing human workers.
Timeline
- Late 2023 / January 2024: Cut 10% of contractor workforce. Spokesperson confirmed decision "attributed to AI."
- 2025: CEO announced company would become "AI-first," further reducing contractor roles.
By the Numbers
- 10% of contractor workforce eliminated
- Company stock actually went up after the announcement
- CEO declared company "AI-first"
- The company wasn't killed — but jobs were